Amanda Hocking

Sometimes I need to watch a movie with Christian Bale. Usually, I go with American Psycho or The Dark Knight, but sometimes, I want something different. Back a few months ago, when I did not have means to purchase DVDs, I had to rent them when I wanted a change of pace.

I love Reign of Fire. It came out on July 12, 2002, which happened to be my 18th birthday, so it was the ultimate Birthday Movie, and it has Christian Bale and dragons in it. And, I believe, a Black Lab song on the soundtrack. So all in all, for me, it’s pretty special.

Anyway, I went to the video store (of which we have one in town), and I got The Prestige (brilliant and underrated – watch it if you haven’t seen it yet). But I couldn’t find Reign of Fire. This led to frustration on my part.

So I searched all over the story looking for something else to satiate my Christian Bale fix. They had 3:10 to Yuma, but I’d just seen it, and they had Public Enemies (which also came out on my birthday but I didn’t got see it because it looked disappointing). I didn’t want to rent that. I looked all over Little Women or even Newsies. Nope, and nope. I would’ve watched The Machinist again. Even that godawful Terminator: Salvation, but every copy had been rented. 

So, here I am, stalking all over the store, determined to find something I wanted to watch with Christian Bale, and working myself into a total frenzy. It’s at that point, when I realize I’m being totally crazy, whilst staring at a cover of Red Dawn, I said aloud, “All my obsessions are healthy.” And then I realized someone was standing right next to me.

The moral being – I am in fact a crazy person, and I have made peace with that. And Christian Bale makes a lot of shite movies.

Letters to Elise is a novella. For those of you, like my roommate, that don’t know what a novella is – it’s a fictional prose between 17,500 and 40,000 words. While Letters to Elise is still going through edits, it stands at roughly 22,000 words. In comparison, all my other novels range between 70,000 and 100,000 words.

Because of the way L to E is written – mostly in the form of letters and a few journal entries – I didn’t think it would work as a full length novel. It has a story, but it’s not standard narrative. I was very limited in what I could tell, what could Peter could know and do. I tried out a couple different ways of writing it, including juxtaposing Peter’s letters with a third person narrative about him. But in the end, I decided the letters alone were the best way to work it.

The main purpose of this is to give more insight into Peter, and to give Peter fans a chance to spend a bit more time with him. It also helps tie in some ideas that will come into play in the final book in the My Blood Approves series.

Since it’s shorter, I want to add some other bonus content. So, what kinds of stuff would you the reader like to see as bonus content to go along with Letters to Elise?

If you haven’t heard about Letters to Elise yet, here’s the trailer:

I’m watching Sneakers right now. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t recommend it. Real Genius and Hackers are of the some vein, and they’re both very enjoyable. Also, Val Kilmer and Jonny Lee Miller are fun to look at – respectively. But Sneakers has one thing the other movies don’t have, the reason I have watched it 30 times – River Phoenix.

I actually just ordered a River Phoenix poster. Because he’s just too much fun to look at.

And that’s why you shouldn’t do drugs, kids. Because you’ll end up dead outside of a night club when you’re only twenty-three, and I’ll be pissed off about it for the next seventeen years. And then some, because I’ll probably still be pissed off about it next year, and the year after.

Also, I finished a boxset tonight. It looks pretty good. I think. I’d take pictures of it, if I knew where my camera is. But I don’t.

Watching Sneakers makes me wish we were fight with the Soviets again. Remember Red Dawn? I heard they’re remaking that with Josh Peck. That sounds stupid. But I love Russian accents and the language. So they shold make more movies with us fighting Russians or something.

Anyway – Switched is going crazy lately. At the time of this writing, it’s #77 in all of Kindle on Amazon. Barnes & Noble says its #126 there, but that number hasn’t moved in weeks, and I’m selling twice as many copies at B&N than I am at Amazon, so I don’t trust the B&N rankings.

I’ll be honest with you guys, because we’re all friends here – I don’t really understand the level of interest in it now. But I appreciate it. So thank you all. Very much.

People are asking for dates when books will be released. I’m not good at specifics, so here’s the general idea: Honalee should be out by December 20th, and Letters to Elise should be out by December 24th. Although, Letters to Elise is closer to release right now, but it’s easier since it’s shorter.

So… those are things.

And if you wanna look at River Phoenix, I’d reccommend My Own Private Idaho or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 

I got a good chunk of my Christmas shopping today. On the internet. I’m not gave enough to fight the crowds at actual shopping centers. I wanted to do all my Christmas shopping from the comfort of my home, but some things just aren’t available on the internet.

Anyway – I’ve begun working on the boxsets. I looked at several different options for boxes, and I tried to come up with what I thought would be the best bets and most affordable options.

So here’s the ideas I have so far:

10 “Boxsets” of the first 4 books in the My Blood Approves series, but they won’t really be boxsets. They’ll be tied together with a ribbon, and they’ll come with mini bookmarks and be autographed. They’ll be priced at $30 (plus shipping).

For 5 Special Edition Box Sets with handmade boxes, bookmarks, stickers, and autographs on all 4 books. I’ll even do a personal message, if you want. These box sets will be priced at $50 (plus shipping). I wanted to do them for less, but the boxes really make that not cost effective.

If this goes well, I will do more of the boxsets. I probably will on occassion do Special Edition box sets.

Also, over the holidays, I’m going to try to get up individual copies of MBA, Switched, and Hollowland that I’ll sign and sell from this site.

Oh, and Hollowland will be getting a makeover for the holidays, so watch out for that. 

I’ll have more info on that in about a week.

December is going to be REALLY busy for me. But I think I can get it all done. Because I’m magic.

If you could say that an entire novella could be based on a single scene that lasts less than a minute in a single movie, then that scene would be the one that follows, and that book would be Letters to Elise.

That film is Candy starring the late great Heath Ledger. The poem is “i carry your heart” by e e cummings (read his poems, if you haven’t).

Here’s the poem in it’s entirety (capitalization and format is his):

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)